Kyrie woke up to someone snoring on top of her. In a moment of unique confusion, she thought Tom must have decided to sleep on the bed after all, and he must be snoring, only the snore was so distant and tiny, that it couldn't be Tom. She wondered, momentarily, as she struggled with what seemed to be several tons of gravel on her eyelids, whether Tom could have shrunk, because she felt a very warm and vibrating body—if a very tiny one—laid across the space between her breasts.
Her mind finally added up that these impressions made no sense, and brought her awake with a sudden jar. Her beginning to rise was met with sharp little needles to the chin and, opening her sleepy eyes, she saw a small orange blur. "Uh?" she said, which seemed the height of eloquence just then. She blinked and saw the sun shining fully across the room and onto the bed, and Tom blissfully asleep mostly on and partly off the sofa next to the bed. He had dark shadows under his eyes, and looked paler than usual. He'd taken his boots and socks off in his sleep, allowing her to see the bandage on his foot, and he was sleeping on his side, probably to avoid hurting his injured back.
Kyrie blinked at the kitten on her breasts. "Hello, Not Dinner," she said in a singsong voice. "Are you one of Tom's strays?"
The kitten purred and licked first one paw, then the other. Kyrie had to admit he was handsome, "In a conceited male feline sort of way." She put her hand out to his tiny head and petted it, feeling the curve of the cranium beneath her fingers. "Mind you, you're much cuter than Rafiel and you can tell him I said that." She cast another look at Tom. She was sure she knew how this story went. Her boyfriend had found the kitten out, somewhere, under the snow. And since he couldn't resist strays, be they human or not, he'd brought it in out of the cold.
She wondered if Tom had thought that cats pooped or that he needed to provide himself with a litter box for the critter. "What are we going to do with him?" she asked. "He adopts the most impractical creatures." But, as Not Dinner purred happily and started a kneading motion at her throat, she couldn't blame Tom. And she hoped Tom liked hapless felines. She happened to know that the bed-and-breakfast allowed pets. There was a big sign in the foyer proclaiming four-pawed guests welcome and Kyrie didn't think it meant shifters. And she was sure the lady, a great cat lover, would find her a litter box for the newest member of the family.
Then she must find someone to fix the bathroom so they could return home. She wondered if one of Rafiel's ubiquitous and very useful relatives happened to be a plumber. If Rafiel found them help within his odd family, it would save explaining what sort of cataclysm had happened in that bathroom. Rafiel could make up whatever he wanted or nothing. His family had to know that there was something very strange about their relative, but none of them seemed to mind covering up for him.
"Right," she said, picking up the kitten, as she slipped out of bed, and dropping him atop the sleeping Tom. "You keep the dragon company while I get decent and go about finding you a litter box."
She fumbled in her suitcase for her robe and slipped it on, before opening the door. And then she saw the headline on the local paper laid outside the door. And shrieked.